On Monday, 24 January 2005, I was delighted to host a special research seminar on behalf of the Centre for Public Communication Research (
CPCR) at the University of Bournemouth.
The seminar, entitled
"Journalism and Public Relations: the Decline of the Public Sphere?", included a talk by
Lee Salter (UWE) and a response by discussants
Dr. Kevin Moloney and
Phil MacGregor (BMS). The event was well attended (in fact it was probably
too well attended, the result being that i had to turn people away, while others sat on the floor / tables / steps / everywhere).
I have now edited my notes / minutes of the event and attach them here. Please feel free to use the Comments function of the blog below to add your own opinions or questions. If you participated in the seminar and would like to make a correction to those notes please also feel free to do that at the Comments section.
13:08 SEMINAR STARTS.
N.B. Lee Salter's talk is based upon his recently published paper entitled "The Communicative Structures of Journalism and Public Relations", Journalism: Theory, Practice, Criticism, Vol. 6, No. 1, pp. 90 - 106. For staff and students of Bournemouth University the paper is available on Media2 in the BACOM / Media and Society / Learning Resources folder.
Lee Salter's presentation:
The starting point for Lee's contribution was
Julia Hobsbawm's article in
The Guardian (November 17, 2003 - online version requires registration) in which she argued that journalism and PR should work together. Salter argues that this argument is problematic and that the two professions have inherently different orientations. Salter bases his analysis on Jürgen Habermas' distinction between two types of communication: strategic communication and communicative reasoning oriented towards mutual understanding of the participants. Salter argues that journalism can be oriented towards mutual understanding, while PR cannot; by its nature it is oriented towards strategic communication.
Important evidence towards that direction is, according to Lee, the self-understanding of professionals in relation to their codes of conduct. An obvious exception to the ability of journalism to promote constructive dialogue is the political-economic pressures that are put upon journalists and are present in everyday newsroom culture. Still, while PR codes mention the protection of public interest, the main aim of PR is to serve the private interest. And if the two conflict (i.e. public v. private interest) then the latter will always prevail in PR practice, which can ultimately damage the former.
Salter attempts to bring together elements of Habermas' theory that can be useful for journalism. The premise/basis of Habermas' theory is that
good reasons are dialogically generated, i.e. they are not the product of individuals reasoning on their own. His theory goes against
teleological accounts (with a clear view of telos, i.e. the ends) or
liberal accounts (private self-interest) of politics. Those models have a closed or individualistic idea of what politics is.
Furthermore, Habermas argues that language is a social thing. The legitimacy of political decisions depends on them reflecting a public (or as Rousseau would put it: general) will. Thus, the issue for Habermas is not
what is general will, but
how that will is formed: ethical decision-making, i.e. a de-ontological approach (focusing on the process). Moreover, the public sphere is not just what people do in public; the form of communication is important.
Finally, Habermas mentions several requirements for the creation of an 'ideal speech situation', which leads to egalitarian communication. Salter also cites Steven White's account of the conditions leading to
communicative freedom on matters of mutual importance (public affairs). That freedom being defined not only in the 'negative' sense (free from restraints), but also in the sense of citizens having mutual responsibilities, thus leading to
intersubjective mutual understanding. Hence, in what Salter calls the "communicative public sphere" mutual understanding is released and the power of the better argument wins the day. Values such as sincerity, normative rightness and truth are questioned.
Lee then explains the differences between
illocutionary and
perlocutionary acts.
[
Roman notes: According to a definition "a perlocutionary act is a speech act that produces an effect, intended or not, achieved in an addressee by a speaker's utterance" e.g. persuading, convincing, scaring, insulting etc. Whereas, the definition of an illocutionary act is "a complete speech act …that consists of the delivery of the propositional content of the utterance …and a particular illocutionary force" such as the speaker's suggestion, promise or vow. In other words, Roman adds, the illocutionary act is, in a way, about the actual speech and its delivery, while the perlocutionary act is about the effects of that speech].
Using that distinction Lee moves to distinguishing between open and concealed strategic forms of communication, arguing that the tendency in PR is to conceal the purpose of the rhetoric; that is to say, PR practitioners hide their intentions. PR practice does not release communicative freedom, which is the purpose of the public sphere. If you are communicating on behalf of yourself one can judge your utterances in comparison to your actions. Yet, if you are representing someone (a client, i.e. you speak on behalf of someone else) then your utterances cannot be compared to the actions; you cannot hold the speaker responsible for their actions (because it's not
their actions).
Hence, Habermas rejects the use of
illocutionary means for perlocutionary purposes, i.e. public understanding for private advantage and Salter argues that that latter applies to PR practitioners. Thus, PR can be linked to the decline of the public sphere.
Moving on to a social/structural examination, it can be argued that strategic action is necessary under capitalism and bureaucratic systems. Perhaps, adds Lee, strategic action is necessary in a society that does not allow for the reflection in the public sphere that Habermas envisioned (i.e. we don't have the time or the inclination). The other problem that is inherent in strategic actions (e.g. PR stunts) is that it's impossible to engage with them - they are
closed to dialogical activity, they cannot be rationally challenged. Furthermore, it is much easier for the elites to use PR / strategic practices rather than for e.g. housewives. Thus,
use of PR depends on economic means.
Habermas noted that there are three systemic media (money/economy, power/state and language); in late capitalism, money and power have taken over the functions of language in its various manifestations. The money/power system is intrinsically incompatible with reason and language; it has its own logic - money and power are the main motivations of PR.
Public opinion is supposed to be formed from the bottom-up; 200 years ago it was asserted by people in the bourgeoisie against domination. However, Salter argues, due to the above patterns the development of modern bureaucratic policies public opinion becomes the object of top-down domination for the benefit of private interests.
Thus, Lee continues, Public Relations is teleologically oriented: it manipulates the structural process for private ends. It has a finite/specific aim/purpose that it tries to achieve, against the normative model of the public sphere that leaves the end product open so as to 'discover' it through an inclusive/collective process.
According to Salter, the problems of PR are also the problems of journalism insofar as the latter is also restricted by the medium of money. The public interest becomes what the public wants to buy. Thus, capitalism turns newspapers and news into commodities. The system of production distorts the mediated public sphere to such a degree that good magazines and newspapers are often marginalised. The contradictions emerging in our contemporary society (e.g. economic progress versus environmental sustainability) have to be managed by a politico-economic system that also needs to sustain itself.
Thus, Lee concludes, the government uses strategic communications with a view to generating consent for policies that could not have been generated in the (real) public sphere.
MAIN PRESENTATION ENDS.
COMMENTS BY THE DISCUSSANTS.
13:45 Kevin Moloney's comments:
Kevin welcomes Lee's paper and believes that PR has been understudied; it is often treated either purely instrumentally (in disciplines such as Law, Management etc) or is completely dismissed (by the Left). Kevin believes that both approaches are wrong and that PR can actually tell us a lot about our society.
Moloney does not share Salter's normative/ideal approach and moves on to "critique the paper but not reject it". Kevin detects shades of
Platonic idealism and neo-Marxism in Lee's position. The paper argues that there is false consciousness and if PR practitioners 'wake up' they will see reality. Moloney disagrees with the approach of false consciousness and with the social methodology involved with it. Instead he opts for
an empirically-led approach and thinks that Lee is foregrounding the ideal and backgrounding the pragmatic. In the society we live there is a consumer culture and an increasing pluralism of voices; PR is always persuasive; seeking communicative advantage; always one-sided and
seeking truth selectively; an agent of causes, clients and belief systems; it is a means for those increasingly varied voices.
According to Kevin,
the model of the public sphere constructed by Habermas cannot exist today. The requirements set by Habermas (e.g. that that space should be open to all, that debaters are 'dis-interested' and that communication is rational) cannot be met. He goes on to argue that PR exists in the
persuasive public sphere and thinks that Habermas is too
Platonic. Moloney identifies more with Mill's liberal model. He concludes by viewing the public sphere as the resolution of different arguments, through which the truth emerges - a truth that is acceptable at that given moment only.
13:52 Phil MacGregor's comments:
Phil broadly concurs with Moloney. He thinks that the paper is even-handed towards / in its focus on journalism and PR. Yet, MacGregor argues, there is another side to Habermas: he has "excessively blocked the light" by colonising the discussion about the public sphere and its content. The idea of the public goes further back (in Britain alone it goes back at least 200 years). If you criticise the Habermasian model you are usually accused of having misunderstood the theory, thus it deters criticism and dialogue. The other question posed by MacGregor is what theories/issues have been ignored or skipped by the Habermasian model.
Going back to the distinction between strategic and communicative thinking presented by Salter, MacGregor thinks it's too polarised. Furthermore, he argues that it is very difficult to join ideal journalism with normative social theory and thinks that Lee has seen too much similarity between Adorno/Marcuse/Platonic idealism and the journalists' code of ethics.
Phil thinks that the discussion on the public sphere contains many difficult (perhaps un-answerable) questions: e.g. is there a public sphere? Is it rational? Can it be grasped? He argues that the real world is 'ruled' not by reason but by force.
MacGregor finds Salter's distinction between public and private interesting. Lee argued that anything sort of the (whole) public is private truth; he also argued that private truth leads to self-interest; and that self-interest goes always against the public interest. So Phil questions basic assumptions in Lee's paper; he claims that private interest can be benign. Furthermore he questions Lee's argument that false consciousness dominates PR practice asking 'where is the evidence?'.
Ultimately, argues MacGregor, Salter has perhaps been too kind towards journalism and too unkind towards PR. Journalism idealises private; it does not only work for the public interest. Journalists define their interest not as 'the public' but as 'the markets'. Phil finally notes that there is unworked tension between the distorted public sphere and the ideal one.
14:02 Lee Salter's response:
Lee clarifies his problem with Julia Hobsbawm's thesis that journalism needs PR by rejecting the idea that journalists need to adopt that style of communication; he rejects the attitude of "if you can't beat them, join them".
He then clarifies that it is not a matter of adjusting journalistic practice or PR practice; you need to answer broader questions of access to the media, access to journalists, and so on. He then makes the argument for public service journalism, universal access, publicly sponsored newspapers etc.
Salter accepts realism's critique of Habermas and clarifies that the paper obviously acknowledges the model's limitations. Structural problems of access and power are outside of PR and journalism.
He then responds to Moloney's support of Mill's liberal approach towards public/private communications, by claiming that some people are much better resourced to engage into the communication process than others (which is a source of inequalities). He accepts though that access is a particularly weak area in Habermas' argument.
Lee agrees with Phil's view that journalism is about markets and selling papers, and has no illusions about it, but he still thinks that you can reform the system so as to support public service news production, whereas PR is by definition there to skew the debate.
In essence, Lee wonders whether we really need democracy for the function of the "real" public sphere - after all, if we simply accept manipulation, power differentials and the unchangability of the economic system then why bother with the rhetoric of democracy?
Finally, responding to Phil's last comment, Lee explains that he has covered the contrast between the communicative and the critical public sphere in other papers.
14:15 DEBATE OPENS TO THE FLOOR.
[
Roman notes: this is not a verbatim transcription of the Q&A, merely a summary]
Kathy Cutts' question: You seem to be taking an agency-based approach of PR (as opposed to an in-house one).
LS: The argument is even stronger for in-house PR practitioners because they do not have a choice about which interests they represent, which goes against Edward Bernays' position of PR practitioners being able to select who they want to represent.
Darren Lilleker's question: Darren reiterates Kevin's point regarding the requirement of the public sphere to be disinterested and rational and asks 'where is that place?'; it's only in our heads - it's an individual thing, it's a summary of the virtual sphere existing in our heads. Also, every time we communicate we try to persuade anyway.
LS: Accepts Kevin's criticism of the Habermasian model but argues that his [Habermas'] theory has often been misunderstood and abused, especially by media scholars around the world, because what was essentially an historical
description was taken as a
prescription of a normative model. Lee thinks that instances such as the Ukrainian uprising and coming-together following the recent election, and the success of the public in reversing that result, was such an example (obviously taking into account the intervention of external parties where applicable). Maybe it could be called the
latent public sphere.
Roman Gerodimos' comment: The model of the public sphere is not so much about what is out there, but what we should be striving for. Even if we never manage to reach that state of (Habermasian) utopia, we may achieve significant progress through that effort, especially in terms of public service, universal access etc.
[
Roman notes: a brief Q&A follows between an audience member and LS on the BBC's response to the Hutton inquiry. LS believes that the BBC's response could have been stronger vis-à-vis the government, and thinks it marked 'deference' rather than 'robustness'].
14:30 SEMINAR ENDS.
